Zitat"The cellphone video is nearly two minutes long and digitally altered to blur the identity of the children. But what it shows is clear: The children are taunting and pushing a boy on a street, egging one another on with cries of “Get him!” and “Slam him!”

The video, posted in March on YouTube, led to the arrests this month of up to 10 children in Murfreesboro, Tenn., who are accused of taking part. But the roundup of such young children — all are under 12, and at least one was handcuffed, a parent said — has shaken almost every sector of the city and state, from the legislature to the churches, and prompted an internal investigation by the new police chief.

The school district has gone on the defensive, saying that only the arrests, not the fight, happened on the grounds of Hobgood Elementary School in Murfreesboro, a city of about 100,000 people that lies 35 miles south of Nashville.

“The authority of the school is superseded when law enforcement or the Department of Children Services become involved,” said Lisa L. Trail, a district spokeswoman.

State lawmakers have called for a Justice Department inquiry. “There are no circumstances under which a child should be arrested, especially when there is no rational safety justification or threat to public safety,” said Representative John Ray Clemmons, Democrat of Nashville.

The police chief, Karl Durr, released a statement shortly after the arrests on April 15 saying that he had ordered an internal review of the department’s policies and would “correct any deficiencies” in the way it handles juvenile cases.

Two days after the arrests, local church leaders and parents gathered in a town-hall-style meeting at the city’s First Baptist Church to urge the authorities to drop the charges, described as “criminally responsible for the conduct of another.” They questioned how children that age could be required by law to intervene to stop a fight. The parents said some of the children were mere witnesses to the episode and had been swept up by the police.

A Police Department spokesman, Sgt. Kyle Evans, said in response to several requests for comment that he was prohibited by state law from discussing any aspect of a juvenile case and was unable to provide details about the location of the brawl, the number and ages of the pupils arrested, the reports of their handcuffing and the current police procedure. There was no information about the person who had digitally altered the video or about the person who recorded or posted it.

[snip]

Zacchaeus and LaVonia Crawford, who identified themselves as the parents of three of them, said in interviews that a day before the arrests, a police officer went to their home and asked whether they knew anything about the boy who was pushed and hit in the video, and showed them a screen shot. During the visit, they said, the officer also asked for their children’s names.

“They came across some evidence that he might have been harmed,” Ms. Crawford said. “My being a mother, I tried to tell her, as well as my children tried, to identify the boy.” She said she and her children provided their own names, told the officer where they thought the boy lived, and the officer left.

The next day, the Crawfords were told by the principal and a police officer that their 10-year-old daughter had been arrested and was being taken to the county juvenile center. The officer said that a warrant had been signed and that their 9-year-old son was also named on it.

When the parents arrived at the center, taking their son, they discovered that their 11-year-old daughter was there, as well. She had been taken out of class and handcuffed, Mr. Crawford said.

“We did not get the official reason of why they were being detained until we went to the juvenile detention location,” he said.

The parents said they were not allowed in the room with their children during questioning. After about three hours, the three children were released with papers charging them with criminal responsibility for conduct of another. They were told to appear in court on June 28.

Ms. Crawford said she learned at the community meeting that another girl had also been handcuffed.

“We have built our lives trying not to get in trouble,” Mr. Crawford, a Verizon technician, said. “We don’t drink, don’t do drugs. We have lived and tried to live as blasé as possible, never trying to do more than we need to do, and we raise our kids to be model citizens so they don’t get in trouble.”

“It is disheartening to us that our kids have to go through this,” he said.

The good news here is, of course, that the arrests were not sexist since girls, too, were detained. Other than that the whole affair sounds pretty stupid and badly handled by the police, and the kids attacking the one boy deserve, but probably won't get, a good spanking.